Weight Lifting for Weight Loss, Fitness and Health

Editor’s note: This is a guest article from Zane. He runs a website called Best Diet Pills that provides consumers with no b.s. reviews of diets and diet pills.

Weight Lifting for Weight Loss, Fitness and Health

In addition to cardiovascular exercise activities, research reveals that weight lifting will also provide individuals with added weight loss and health benefits. According to research, weight lifting exercises not only boost the body’s muscle tone and strength, but they are also shown to increase the body’s metabolism, fat burning abilities, and energy levels.

Benefits of Weight Lifting

Metabolism
One of the key benefits of weight lifting comes from the fact that weight lifting increases the body’s metabolism. The metabolism is essentially the body’s ability to burn calories; therefore, the faster your metabolism is, the faster you can burn food and ultimately avoid weight gain. Essentially, your metabolism is boosted when lifting weights since the increased muscle fibers burn off calories more efficiently and effectively. Therefore, by lifting weights regularly, individuals are able to teach their bodies and metabolisms to process food more efficiently.

Lean Muscle Tissue
Weight lifting provides benefits for both men and women, although the body’s ability to increase muscle mass varies between the two sexes. Essentially, women’s weight lifting activities will increase the body’s appearance of tone, while also boosting the body’s strength and abilities. On the other hand, men’s weight lifting activities will actually increase the size of various muscle groups; therefore, both men and women benefit, yet only men are able to significantly bulk up from weight lifting activities. Also, lean muscle tissue is where the bulk of calories are burned when being processed, so individuals who begin a weight lifting regimen early on in life often lose about ½ to ¾ of a pound more than non-weight lifters each year.

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Improved Aging Abilities
As humans age, the body naturally slows down, as the metabolic rate also slows its processes. As a result, it is common and normal for humans to gain relatively small amounts of weight each year as they gain. By lifting weights, however, dieters are able to prevent this weight gain, as the muscle tissues and fibers promote weight loss at every age throughout one’s lifetime.

Why Dieting Alone May Not Work

By dieting alone, without exercise, the body begins to burn muscle stores; therefore, while individuals may experience weight loss, nearly 25% of the amount lost may come from muscle tissue and fibers.

Even cardiovascular activities have been shown to not completely boost one’s metabolic rate. Traditionally, cardio exercises include activities such as running, jogging, walking, etc. These activities are effective calorie-burning exercises, but only increased muscle can effectively boost one’s metabolic rate.

How to Begin Weight Lifting

Individuals interested in weight lifting can take advantage of various fitness opportunities, such as:

Attending weight lifting / muscle building group fitness courses.

Joining a gym with various weight equipment machines to help provide support and guidance.

Hiring a personal trainer who can guide an individual through specific and effective exercises.

Add weight lifting to your workouts today, if you haven’t already!

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About the Author

My name is Israel Lagares. I used to be the kind of guy that was always in shape, but over the last few years I've fallen off tremendously. This site is my final attempt to get back into shape. So far I've lost 70.4 lbs. Check out my weight loss chart, weight loss videos and progress pics. Follow my journey, those of others, and read our thoughts on various health topics. Share your thoughts, experience, and journey here on FMU.

Community Thoughts (43)

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Ah, yes. For those who advocate ‘cardio’ for weight loss, they should try muscular endurance exercising. Some call it ‘circuit training’.
It’s vastly superior and the results speak for themselves.
I think weight-lifting, weight-training should be included in everyone’s lifestyle in some way, shape, or form.
Their are nothing BUT benefits.

Good post, and I have to agree with Strong One, Circuits are great at building muscular endurance and burning calories in a time efficient way; however, don’t think that you have to use externally loaded weights to build muscle or burn fat. You can create a bodyweight routine that will also accomplish these goals. Your muscle’s don’t care about where the resistance comes from as long as there’s resistance . . .

Women can bulk up too! Testosterone is present in both sexes and women’s muscles will respond to heavy weight training by getting larger. Now, with proper training one can enhance tone and tsrength without too much bulk, but it is a fallacy to say that women’s muscles necessarily won’t get larger with weight training.

I had a professor who is in the US strength/conditioning coaches hall of fame and he always said the first thing he would do with people that wanted to lose weight (fat) was start them on a strength training program.

Weight training is also a better choice than cardio to increase your metabolism through an increased EPOC

EPOC or Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption is essentially a measurement of how quickly or slowly your metabolism (BMR) returns back to normal after exercising.

Where cardio increases your short term metabolism – for the duration of your cardio session , and added muscle mass increases your long term metabolism, increasing your EPOC through resistance training is a way to increase your metabolism for up to 36 hours.

I’m not overweight but I am interested in staying healthy. You make a good point about weight lifting, however I think that it can be supplemented by playing sports instead assuming you’re not fond of it.

Good post, and I have to agree with Strong One, Circuits are great at building muscular endurance and burning calories in a time efficient way; however, don’t think that you have to use externally loaded weights to build muscle or burn fat. You can create a bodyweight routine that will also accomplish these goals. Your muscle’s don’t care about where the resistance comes from as long as there’s resistance . .

I agree. While your diet will be the factor in the amount of weight you lose, your workout level will determine how much of that is fat and how much is muscle. Plus, by building muscle you will inevitably lose more fat in the process!

Well its not lots of training nor no food that will make you healthy. A mixture of both will do the trick (At least what it has done to me) You can create a bodyweight routine that will also accomplish these goals. Your muscle’s don’t care about where the resistance comes from as long as there’s resistance and a good source of protein.

Be honest with yourself. Do not try to be superhuman. You will fail if you “change everything.” All I ask is that you realize that you are human and have limits to the severity of what you can do and sustain

I have no lost a total of about 55-60 pounds in 1.5-2years since my last physical. My highest peak was at 208 or 210 and I had high cholesterol and an inflamed liver. Now that I’m down to about 150 (5’9″ tall), I’m trying to gain some weight back because I was told I’m too skinny.

It’s actually pretty darn hard to gain weight compared to losing it . I know weight lifting and exercising is for the health, but I’ve just been sitting in front of the computer for the whole year or more, but just slowed down on snacking and eating less rice. It really works.

it is so nice to see weight loss and weight lifting tips on here geared towards men. Most of the stuff on the internet is geared towards women. Although I am a woman, I am always looking for information for my husband. Thank you for such an insightful site.

Hi All, what a great post.
Im 27 yrs old and Im 5’7 weigh 60 kilos, I feel so so fat and have been skinny for a while.
I seem to have gained heaps of weight in the last three months rapidly and trying to stay fit.
My diet is mainly weetbix( about 4-6( and then more weetbix, then occasional binges on cookies, cup of soup, boiled eggs and sometimes bread.
I have just started working with weights, try my best but would appreciate if I got some info on how best to use resistance traning to tone up my butt and thighs. I have seen results up top but my butt seems to not respond.
Im also considering getting on to a high protein diet to curb my cravings for carbs and turn up the heat in this body!

MissFitnessFan. I am 28 yrs old, and female. I definately think you need to start eating more lean protein, good fats such as mixed raw nuts, avocados, almond butter.. No more weetbix, they will only make you crave more sugar/bad carbs and also bloat you; hint why you feel fat.Cookies, should only be a one/ week treat, and not a whole box, 2-3max!!

You need to start having eggs and veggies for breakfast, low fat cottage cheese with some nuts and a piece of fruit as a snack, a piece of lean protein (chicken fish, beaf) for lunch with a side salad or veggies, another snack of protein and nuts and some veggies or small piece of fruit as a snack, and for dinner, same as lunch. No fizzy drinks or juices, full of sugar and only make you crave. Water and herbal teas..